


Obscurial Coracinus

by MistressGalahat



Series: Twelve Days of Stories [9]
Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: Abuse, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Non-Explicit Sex, Spoilers, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-18
Updated: 2016-12-18
Packaged: 2018-09-06 11:13:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,602
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8748295
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MistressGalahat/pseuds/MistressGalahat
Summary: Latin for 'raven-black.'





	

**Author's Note:**

> On the ninth day of Christmas  
> my true love sent to me:  
> Nine Magical Moments
> 
> Soundtrack: Laura Marling - What He Wrote

To be safe in the dark.

To be and breathe and  _ live _ in the dark, is something Credence has always done. Not as much living, as it has been survival. A cruel stroke of leather in a pitch black time of night, welts and bloody swelling accompanying him to bed.

His mother caressing his cheek in dreams, and yet refusing to meet his eyes when he is awake. Modesty and her terrible songs that remind him of how much being himself is a sin. Chastity, with her cruel eyes and scathing remarks as he returns to the table like a beaten dog in hopes of a handful flyers to give him a purpose for the day.

Credence always finishes last, whether it be flyers or punishment with his own belt in the hands of a garish woman who should care equally for them all. But she never does. Chastity follows in the footsteps of the Mother of Salem, their own saviour in the form of Mary Lou.

He protects Modesty the best he can, because while her words hurt, she doesn’t know any better. Credence doesn’t either, but the sinful part of him wishes for everything to be different. It’s childish and hopeful. Hopeless.

And he forgets about that part of him, the streak of sin that paints his heart in a disastrous raven-black. Slowly, carefully, and with breath that hurts his chest and makes him sob harder with every blow. He doesn’t sleep for a long time, his aching vessel not allowing him - but he grows better under Mary Lou’s words and hands. She beats it out of him for his own good, and he knows he would be better off with her helping him.

Credence forgets everything, if just for the span of a moment where his chest is numb and face devoid from anything but the rain and the words of his Mother. His Mother, who is waiting at home and who would lay a hand on him if she caught Credence staring at the man across the street.

Someone takes a flyer out of his hands, but Credence can’t bring up his eyes to face them. All he sees is the swish of a coat that should have stayed on the other side of the street, except now it is in front of him and he can’t remember how to breathe. His chest is hurting again in that way that makes him want cry from knowing how much he has sinned. Will sin. Lives a sin.  _ Wants _ the sin.

The man doesn’t say a word, doesn’t give a smile. Stands there with a flyer in his hand and a sneer on his face as if everything that is wrong within this wretched world is the piece of paper in his hand.

His hair is raven-black, and Credence stops shaking.

There is no reason to do so, when Credence looks into the dark eyes of this older man and sees nothing but the sin reflected in his own. It burns him from the inside, makes his skin crawl and boil till he fears it will melt right off his bones. It doesn’t, but where the man grabs him by the shoulder, it burns so rightfully it makes him gag.

There is nothing to protect him from the sensation of being ripped from one reality he has assimilated himself into, to the swirling motion that leaves him swaying in an unfamiliar back alley in New York. Credence knows he is still in New York. Can smell the hotdogs in the air and the hot steam and the clear rain that kisses his lashes till he is consumed with the feeling of a home that is not welcoming him.

The man stares at him, eyes so,  _ so _ sinful.

“Percival Graves,” the man says, and Credence’s stomach should not be pleased with the man’s name. Percival, he tries it out on his tongue, and it leaves his mouth dry and boots quivering from anything but the cold.

“Credence. Credence Barebone.” He says, and everything is right. Credence and Percival. The right and the wrong and the wrong and the right. He doesn’t know which one is which - if it is the both of them that are wrong, or if it is only Credence. Percival says he doesn’t care, and Credence smiles for the first time since Mary Lou entered his life.

He gets an extra ten lashes when he finally makes it back, but the salty tears leaking into his mouth and Modesty’s soft, timid cries at the sight of him are drowned by the knowledge of a man named Percival that now exists in his life.

Sleep doesn’t come easy, with interrupted bouts of painful groans and Modesty crawling into his bed. It doesn’t stop the flashes of dreams penetrating the dark, and even if they are particularly sinful and leaves Credence panting and dreading, that buried part of him is leaping up like a defiant tiger.

He tries, he really, really tries not to let Mary Lou see him smile. Of all the children coming through, she has always seemed to hate him the most, and even the tiniest flicker of his lips has been known to send her into a flying rage that leaves him with a black eye and a bleeding nose.

Modesty cares for him, two weeks into Credence having first come across Mr Percival Graves. His cheekbone is bruised and fingers broken in two places, or at least it feels that way. They have no ice to chill the ache, but Modesty has soaked one of her night gowns in the rainy weather outside and it brings him a tiny piece of happiness.

“You shouldn’t smile, Credence.” She whispers, eyes on the door as if either Chastity or Mary Lou would burst through it and punish her for taking care of her older brother. “If you stop, Mother won’t punish you. If you stop thinking of sin, Mother can cure you, like she did with Chastity and me.”

It hurts to hear Modesty be so grown when she is no more than eight. He is supposed to be protecting her, and all he can think of is how much of a sin it would be to run away from Mary Lou and steal Modesty with him. Part of him knows that she wouldn’t leave, even if given the chance.

Just like he wouldn’t be able to leave either. No matter if he had ever met such a person as Percival Graves. No matter the sin or the good deed, they are both trapped in the clutches of a woman they call Mother and a place that should be a home. That it is a dank, cold and heartless place is Credence’s definition of a home.

He stops smiling after that.

Credence still meets with Mr Percival Graves, but he never smiles. For some reason, it appeases the older man, and Credence crawls further into himself - only for Percival to follow in places that the boy could never have imagined.

There is an insistent need beating against Credence’s ribcage. The request from Percival in his ears that makes him think of Modesty. So pure and lighthearted in the face of their bad lot in life, confident and adaptable in a way Credence has never been. Credence is sin, and Modesty is the light he has left, even when she hurts him in ways that neither Chastity and Mary Lou can manage.

She doesn’t mean to hurt with her words, not like the others, but still she manages to.

Most of all, because the  _ wrong _ thing that had crawled in his chest and lessened has started to blossom again. It leaves Credence breathless and slumped against walls with Percival Graves bent over him and a warm hand in his hair. His lips are flushed and his skin raw from where teeth has scraped over his jugular.

Credence goes home and lashes himself with the belt as best as he can the first time it happens. When it happens again, he shows up late and hopes Mary Lou will do it for him. She does, time and time again, and while Credence begs and hopes it will stop, his feet find themselves back in the dark alley, waiting and hoping for that familiar face to appear.

Sometimes it happens, and sometimes it doesn’t.

It is never caring, though, that is the one constant Credence can see in this murky place of his mind and actions. It as harsh as every bloody welt that has ever appeared on his body, but the sentiment is different, the thoughts behind the action somehow greater than anything he has ever experienced before.

It makes the sin crawling in him burst one day, and yet he can’t even remember. All he knows is that he puked what meager contents his stomach had, and he refrains from eating the next three days in hopes that the feeling will pass.

It doesn’t.

It only grows and festers with rotten claws that break apart upon contact with his aching skin and brittle bones.

Credence really wants to help Percival Graves find what he is looking for. He wants to be a part of a world that is more fantastical than he could ever hope to imagine, and he knows deep within him that Modesty can’t be the child he seeks. If she is, though - if she is… 

Credence doesn’t want Modesty to die.

He is about to say so the next time they meet. That he suspects his little sister, but that he isn’t sure. Knows that if he brings her to Percival, those frail, tiny eyes will never trust him again. He gets as far as to open his mouth when Percival gives him a present.

A token that weighs heavy around his neck and steals away his words for such a long time, all Credence can do is inhale the scent of Percival and relish in what he has. Sin or no sin, it makes his chest feel good and his head want to split apart.

With nimble fingers, Credence barely refrains from touching it all the way home.

The feeling of ease and calm disappears the moment he finds that cursed stick under Modesty’s bed. He had wished for it not to be her, hoped that it would be one of those children wandering to and from the little soup kitchen they had boiling downstairs.

When Mary Lou finds him with it clutched in his sinful hands, he gets the blame.

But because it is Modesty, he has no qualms with it. Lives with it as he has lived with it before. Except Modesty tries to take the blame, and the belt gets raised against her scared little whines, petulant and frightened like an animal.

The sin that has been welling up like an infected cut rips from him with such exceedingly anger that everything around him is blind, and he is blinded in return. Modesty screams, but Credence pays her no mind. She won’t be harmed by his hands.

Mary Lou, on the other hand, does not have the same immunity. She tumbles, back cracked and face torn apart before she hits the floor. Chastity screams too loudly, and he silences her too. Snaps her neck and leaves her to sob on the floor with no chance of moving until he tears her apart as well.

There is no blood that he can see, but Credence can taste it on his chapped lips. It is there all the same, tangy and shining copper that makes Modesty step back from him and she runs before he can beg for her not be scared.

Not that he ever could do that. The sin is too strong within him, and Modesty must have sensed it too. So he rubs the pendant between his fingers and wishes for the familiar warmth that he has come to know to be his second sin.

Percival comes for him in the rubble, but he has no eyes for Credence. All he asks for is Modesty, and Credence cannot understand. Modesty is brilliant and kind and everything that he isn’t, so he doesn’t understand.

Not even when the slap comes. He has seen too many to not know it for what is was, but that it is Percival’s hand scares Credence until he can do nothing but whimper and take the man that had once been the sin he could partially live with.

He takes him to the old house where Modesty came from. She talks about it enough that he remembers every twist and winding road that leads to it. Has seen enough yearning gazes in the general direction of it to know where his feet will lead him.

Percival leaves him crying on the stairs, filthy words leaving the man’s mouth and breaking Credence in a way that has never been done before. It is strange and unfamiliar feeling of not being needed by someone whom he had come to need.

And Credence knows that the burning plumes of emotion that swallows him whole and spits him out is no longer his sin. It is him, wholeheartedly, and there is nothing in him that isn’t sin. Has never been and will never be anything but the darkness that makes him breathe and live for more than the notion of a day to come.

Percival Graves is just as bad as Chastity and Mary Lou, if not worse. Because the latter two has laid their paws on him with both physical and verbal means, but none of them has ever come close to mean what Percival Graves once meant to Credence Barebone.

He roars and swirls and forgets himself in all but the rage and tears that drives him. He can’t control it, and Credence struggles for a moment to think why he would want to. He is free from everyone but himself, and even then the mere thought of freedom is too much for him to handle.

Percival pleads for him. Apologizes and begs for Credence in a way the younger man has heard few times before, and even then it has been but in the heady throes of passion and washed out corners of the world where none would find them.

It only serves to fuel his anger, and Credence flees to the tunnels of swift trains and cold stone that soothes his enflamed heart. There is still no blood on him, but he feels it under his fingernails and in the roots of his hair.

Someone Credence doesn’t know tries to calm him.

“I’m Newt Scamander,” the man says with a kind smile that has never before been aimed at Credence. The freckled man is either brave or foolish, perhaps a bit of both with a mix of brazenness, but something is tugging at the darkness crawling all over him. “Let me help you, Credence.” That voice is so, so kind, and he remembers the soft smile of a Mother that never raised a hand against him.

Percival comes too, with whispered words, but all they serve to do is make Credence remember Modesty’s tearstained face as she fled from her monster of a brother.

He cannot choose between the man that has touched him, and the man that has touched his heart.

In the end, the decision is ripped from him. He thinks he hears the soft voice of a woman that once tried to help him, but she is drowned out by the flashing paints that erupts from within and pounds and pounds and pounds till he shrieks.

Scamander and the woman cries out, as if they were saddened when Credence lets go of himself and drifts away. He is hurting too much, in heart and body and mind. He has been hurting for a long time, but nothing compares to the magic of the MACUSA searing through him.

He recalls Percival telling him about them, one time. How the MACUSA were both good and bad, and how he would make it better. Except Percival never did.

And before Credence slunk away, nary a whisper of himself anymore, he sees Percival Graves wearing another face. It is only then that Credence realises he has been lied to for longer than he had thought. A scapegoat and a weapon and a face that once made him smile.

Gellert Grindelwald is a name Credence Barebone will remember for ages to come, for the good and bad that the man brought with him. Because he cannot run from the fact that whatever face he had worn, he had changed him in ways he could never have anticipated.

He takes to the streets, only now capable of seeing the blood. It is his own, this time, but Credence isn’t scared. He scours the places he knows, hopes to find Modesty or anyone that he recognizes, but none comes forward.

Credence dodges MACUSA only narrowly, but he learns that they believe him gone from the world, and that makes everything a little easier - even if Modesty is far from his reach, and he is once again alone in an unfamiliar environment that has never been more hostile and unfriendly to a sinner such as him.

He finds a kind baker who lets him have the stale bread that isn’t sold, and Credence steals a shirt from one of the countless washing lines that sweep through the sky of New York City. It sags on him, too large and too long, but it is warm and whole.

Credence has nowhere to go, so he stays close to the bakery that offers him food and asks no questions. It is a kindness unlike any other. They ask for no favours and no money in return, the owner merely asking for him to promise to come back and buy them fresh once Credence gets back up on his feet.

He doesn’t quite know what it means, but he refuses to ask for an explanation.

Once, he thinks he sees Modesty’s long, flowing hair on his way to the bakery, but she is gone far quicker than he can make his eyes focus. He hopes it was her. She looked happy, one hand clasped with that of an older woman with one of those smiles that could light up the world. He knows he should be jealous, that the response would be far from unnatural, but all he can do is let the tears of joy fall and wish her the best.

She doesn’t need him in her life anymore, and he knows by know that letting her go is the best he can do for her. The knowledge does little to stop the hurt that shoots through him, but it does lessen it, at least somewhat.

Credence has no clue how long he has spent wandering the streets. With no home and no Mary Lou to keep count for him, the days lose their significance and blur into one long period of time. There is eating, finding somewhere to rest his head, sleeping, and staying awake. The circle repeats itself again and again, and never once does it break.

The only days where a divergence appears is when the kind baker wishes to know his opinion on a new pastry flavour, or he has an extra plate of freshly baked goods that he insists will not fit on his display. Credence accepts hungrily, wondering if he might have known this man at some point, or at least has seen him before. He doesn’t think so, but he catches those lingering eyes and furrowed brows on his form more than once, and he has to ponder if he is the only one who has trouble remembering at times.

Little by little, he lets that sin out of his chest. He refuses to think of this Grindelwald called him an Obscurial. To Credence, the thing that he is, it is a sin. That he has learned to live with it is different from what Grindelwald would have wanted him to, but he does not answer to that man anymore.

It comes in controllable bursts, now. He can flick one hand with a snap of a wrist, and then he is incorporeal and he for a short while, Credence stops hurting. He doesn’t tear up buildings, blunder through streets, or kill people like Mary Lou and Chastity. There is a never ending fight for control, but there is also a ferocious need to win that fight.

It serves to keep Credence going, even when the streets of New York grow colder and there is fresh snow falling from the sky like crystal tears. There is still no job for an orphan boy like him, and to be honest, he has not had the most inspiring reason to try for one. If only by a little, sleeping on the streets is like when Mary Lou punished him, and a part of him has trouble letting go of that feeling.

Credence still hunches in on himself, takes only what is necessary for him to survive on the streets, and eats what scrap he comes across. He tries not to bother the kind baker too much, but it is hard when there are starving children in the streets and he is but one. There are others who need it more, and sometimes he gets a greasy paper bag so he can give it out to the grubby hands that are too small for a cruel world.

He is starving himself when his cycle of life changes abruptly one day. The last child has taken a piece of bread, leaving half a loaf for Credence. It is more than he got yesterday, so he is pleased with the outcome of the day. Except there is one child left who has yet to dare approach him.

Credence never tries to look too imposing for the children. He knows what it does to them, as it has done the same to him.

The girl is no older than six. Long, dirty hair reaching the tip of her bony elbows, nothing but sinew and flesh in a walking vessel. He crouches down and reaches out the loaf of bread, because above all, she reminds terribly of Modesty.

She doesn’t speak to him, only darts forward and grabs the bread before running off. Credence is not offended by the action, as he has seen it countless of times. It is, however, as the child runs, that she bumps into a man with a coat and impeccable eyes that makes Credence stop breathing and his fingers twitch.

“Easy there, kiddo,” the man says, and helps the little girl stand. She eyes him, warily as any child of the street should rightfully do, before clutching her loaf tighter and scarfing it down. She takes off before she is even finished, hastily shoving it into her mouth as she flees the scene.

Credence wishes he could do the same. Have the courage to run and never look back. Leave New York behind entirely and seek a new existence beyond the boundaries that he knows by heart and hurt. He knows that he has yet to find that courage, and he remains hunched on the ground, staring up into the eyes of Percival Graves.

“Are you okay?” He asks, tone lighter than Credence has ever heard it before. There is no rough edge to it, no husky lilt or a swift hand on his neck as he yearned to be taken. This is not the man whom both freed and destroyed Credence Barebone.

He doesn’t know which is worst.

Knowing that the Percival Graves he knew was never real, or that he fell for a man who now knows nothing but the scrawny young man sitting half in the snow with tears pouring down his face. He can’t stop crying, and neither does he want to.

The thing in his chest is still yearning, and even though he knows it is not the same, Credence can’t turn off the need that is cracking his skull and melting his ribs. There is no organ pumping his blood - he had given it up long ago.

“Don’t cry,” the man says, flustered as he bends down to be at the same eye level as Credence. There are no words for the heartbreak that wracks through him, and this kind man has nothing to do with what he has been through. He cannot help the blame that drowns him in a tidal wave and lands him at the feet of an unfamiliar Percival Graves wearing a lover’s face.

He ends up grabbing the lapels of Percival’s coat, holding him tight and sobbing into his chest. The man must have some notion of who he is, as he only holds him still, whispers in his ear that it will be okay and that Grindelwald cannot hurt him any longer.

Percival takes him to his home.

Tells him he should be turned over to MACUSA.

He doesn’t, though. He owes Credence for all that Grindelwald put him through - or so he tells the younger man, even if he is not aware of the extent of what they were to each other. It is a cold and careless reward for what he has gone through, so Credence locks himself in the tiny bathroom and refuses to open the door for hours.

Percival tries to coach him out at first, but Credence is silent in anything but his tears and the wails that rips from him without permission. He leaves him alone after that, to deal with this newfound and strange grief that plagues Credence.

There is no part of Percival Graves that should feel he owed someone like Credence Barebone any sort of debt. And yet every time Credence emerges from his safe space in the Brooklyn apartment, there is a self reheating meal on a plate waiting for him.

He eats what he can when Percival leaves for work at MACUSA, and never once turns him in. In return, he does the dishes and reads every book on the shelves that has a moving picture on the cover. They intrigue him to the point where he can be in the same room as Percival for longer than an hour or two.

For whatever reason that tied Percival Graves to him, Credence Barebone knows he can never leave that Brooklyn apartment behind. He is not a prisoner, not like he had been back with Mary Lou and the New Salem Philanthropic Society. There are no beatings to come home to, only warm food and a smile that is almost as pitying as it is apologetic.

Credence leaves for an entire day to go back to the bakery and give handouts to the hungry children. He is not at all surprised to find his feet wandering back in the direction of Brooklyn when the last Niffler bread has been distributed to the twins on 52nd street.

Percival greets him when he gets back, and Credence pauses on the doorstep. There has never been a proper home before, and yet he finds himself thinking of this place, with this man that carries a face that was abused by another man. Someone who, just as Credence, had been abused. It is a strange revelation, that leads to Credence joining Percival at the dinner table for the first time.

He starts counting the days again after that, because no two days are the same with Percival.

They never get too close. Percival, because he doesn’t know why, and Credence, because he knows that if he gets too close, he won’t be able to stop again. There is the unspoken rule of not bringing up Grindelwald, and he thinks it might have started when he first locked himself in the bathroom at the mere mention of the man.

So it is an incredible feat of confidence - of trust - that Percival breaches the subject one late February, nearly two months after Credence first found himself in the place he now calls home. He speaks, at great length, about how Grindelwald kept him as a prisoner. Tortured him for information and always wore his face when doing it. He has yet to look in a mirror, and not flinch away, or so he claims.

Credence says Grindelwald tortured him too, but he doesn’t elaborate. He can’t find it in himself to mention that it was his heart that took the brunt of the force, and not his body - that part of him had been heated and more sated in those months with Grindelwald than he had ever thought possible, and with but a thought he feels sick to his stomach again.

He pukes and refuses to touch a meal for three days.

They don’t speak of Grindelwald again, but each knows the other just a tiny smidgen better than before, despite the pain of speaking it out loud. Percival is decidedly happier after the brief discussion, though there are no words to back it up. And while Credence still hunches in on himself and rarely speaks out, he stands but a inch taller than before, a smile more readily on his lips as he greets Percival when he walks in the door.

There is magic between them too, the kind that Credence struggles to control at the best of times, but that Percival pulls him through whenever everything gets to be too much. They wave with their hands, and the older man summons a book with an encouraging few words in Credence’s direction. He tries to follow, and for the next three weeks, he is sitting in the ottoman waving his hand and hoping for the sin in his chest to grow lighter and be better.

Let him be better.

It takes time, but it does.

Credence manages to have a book fly into his hand with a loud smack that echoes around the apartment. It makes Percival jump and whip his wand out as he twirls away from the stove and the boiling pot of soup. His hair is in a disarray, a thin, white shirt the only thing keeping the older man warm in the otherwise cold air of their home.

“You did it. You really did it.” He says with such an ounce of astonishment that Credence can’t help but snort. It is the first time he has felt comfortable doing so, but Percival looks so genuinely happy for him that there was no reason not to do it.

There is a lot of things Credence wants, and the book is only part of it.

“I did do it.” He says, licking his lips as he got up from the chair. The book is a firm weight in his hand, a grounding force that reminds him of what he has endured to get to this point. That his sin is no sin, even though it might feel that way. That he is a person with needs and wants like any other, and that he shouldn’t punish himself for those thoughts.

Credence is sure this isn’t what Percival had meant when he had said it, but there is no going back as he stalks up to the older man. He corners him by the stove, the spoon in the pot of soup stirring by itself as Percival had let go in favour of his wand.

There is nary any space between them as Credence stretches out one hand and curls his fingers over Percival’s white knuckles and lowers his wand. There is no fear about, hands touching gently in the silence of their home.

Their home.

Because Percival Graves doesn’t seem to care how dark Credence Barebone is. He is dark himself, with his obsidian locks and eyes that swallow the sun. But his savour, the real one, is also the light that Credence craves, and he yearns for it even in the man’s constant presence.

So he leans forward, refuses to close his eyes as he kisses Percival and licks at his lips. The older man is frightfully still, but Credence is done hiding who he is. He wants to embrace every part of himself, and that part can only be reached when he is with Percival.

The kiss is languid, cocky and confused all in one neatly wrapped package. Percival pushes back, ever so gentle despite his somewhat rough appearance. Credence opens his mouth and welcomes the tongue that greets his own.

It is messy and hot and wrong in all the ways that Credence has come to know as the right ways. It makes him happy, and therefore it is a good thing. There is no more darkness in him than the light of Percival Graves can chase away with a soft kiss and a warm hug as they lay in bed, panting and pleased.

Under the sheets and the caring, dark eyes of Percival Graves, Credence can never bring himself to get rid of the metal pendant that burns against his skin, even as he has lost every other article of clothing that shielded him from the world.

The pendant is a reminder. It is his sin to bear. For what he has done, and for what he will do. His time with Grindelwald is the one sin he cannot bring himself to erase, no matter how much it means to him that there is another man in his life.

The same face, the same callous hands that touch him in the right ways.

Percival Graves’ own darkness is nothing like that of one Credence Barebone.

**Author's Note:**

> I had major feels after watching the movie.


End file.
